


It's Been Four Hundred and Ninety Days

by paradis



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Breakup Fic, Established Relationship, Future Fic, I swear, M/M, angsty, sort of, there's a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradis/pseuds/paradis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been four hundred and ninety days, and it took Derek forever but they’re at day one again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Been Four Hundred and Ninety Days

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Quatre cent quatre-vingt-dix jours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/527676) by [F0etus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/F0etus/pseuds/F0etus)



> So this fic came about really fast, and thanks x a million to beautiful beta mirajanescarlet, for editing the fic on the fly, and helping me figure out just what the hell I wanted to do with this fic. 
> 
> And so, this came about. 
> 
> If you're interested, [this](http://korynnvictoria.tumblr.com/) is my tumblr, and you can come check me out. I always follow back. :)

There’s not a big fight. There’s not screaming and yelling and throwing things, like Derek always imagined it would go. There’s not Derek, slamming Stiles up against a wall, and there’s not Stiles, looking hurt and sad and _so disappointed._ There’s none of that.

One day, Derek comes home to find Stiles packing his things. 

That’s how it ends. Stiles looks up and gives him a sad smile, and Derek sinks onto the mattress, bare now, because _Stiles bought those sheets,_ and he’s taking them, too. He watches Stiles pack. When Stiles is done, he throws his suitcase down the stairs to the landing, grabs his duffel bag, and clears his throat, shifting his weight back and forth, before he says, “I need someone who wants to fight for this,” in a soft, pained whisper, and walks down the steps. 

Derek doesn’t say anything, but he follows him down the stairs, and into the living room. Isaac is sitting on the couch with tears in his eyes. “Please don’t leave,” he says, and Stiles kisses his forehead. 

“I’ll always be here for you, buddy,” he says, and ruffles Isaac’s hair. “Just a phone call away, alright?”

“Where are you going?” Isaac sniffles. 

Stiles shrugs. “We’ll see,” is all he says, and something hot and painful burns inside Derek, like he’s losing his family all over again. It spreads and ignites all over his body, face heating, and there’s something desperate inside him screaming, _don’t go don’t go don’t go,_ except Derek can’t make his mouth work, or his throat stop swelling enough to actually say the words. 

Before Stiles walks out the door, he stops and turns back around to face Derek. And he leans in and kisses him on the cheek. And Derek wants _so badly,_ but he can’t. 

So he watches Stiles go. He watches him get in that stupid Jeep that sits in their driveway most of the time because it’s on its last leg and Derek insisted on buying Stiles something better, more efficient and sturdier. Stiles leaves the keys to the just two years old Dodge Charger sitting on the foyer table. When the taillights disappear down the drive, Derek turns back around.

Isaac is gone.

==

Derek adjusts to life without Stiles the same way one is expected to adjust to life without the one person you love in your life. He thinks. He goes about his days, strangely monotonous, and most days he doesn’t even remember what’s happened. Sometimes Isaac snaps him out of it just a little, with a shout of _“Derek!_ ” right before pushing food in front of him. Sometimes Jackson gives him a look, like he’s wondering whether Derek is _all there_ or not. Sometimes Scott just looks at him with a hard, angry expression, like he can’t believe Derek let it get this far.

Derek deserves that look, most of all.

==

Stiles and Derek fighting is nothing new. Neither of them expected it to change when they got together, and they were more than a little relieved when it _didn’t_ change. 

The problem with them being together is that when they’re not fighting, they’re confiding their deepest and darkest feelings to one another, and Derek knows how to use those words to hurt, more than anything, when they start fighting again. The first time he does it, Stiles recoils back, like Derek has just slapped him, and gives him a look like he can’t believe he just said it. 

But Derek didn’t choose Stiles as a partner because he lies down and takes it; Stiles is just the opposite of that. He knows how to fling words right back, and before they know it, they’re screaming and shouting, hurling painful insults at one another that cut like knives and burn like acid against the other person. Things are thrown, words are said, and by the end, when they’re both breathless, tears are streaming down Stiles’ face, and Derek has clawed marks into the wall he’s been standing next to. 

There’s silence for a moment. Stiles’ sniffles echo around the room and Derek’s breath catches a little as he realizes everything they’ve said to one another, all the painful digs at families and leadership qualities and hyperactivity. He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. 

Stiles sniffles again, and lets out a short, bitter laugh. “I have never hated you so much in any moment, than I do right now,” he says acidly, and walks out of the house. 

Derek doesn’t follow him. 

==

Stiles always comes back. Derek never follows, and Stiles never asks him to. They fight and scream and yell, and sometimes it gets a little too violent, a little too out of hand, to the point where Isaac and Scott are splitting them apart, pulling them out of each other’s faces and telling them to _calm down, this isn’t right, calm down!_

Maybe that’s why Derek just goes about his days, convinced that Stiles will be coming back this time, too. 

==

Isaac says it first. “He’s not coming back.”

Derek looks up from where he’s dicing green peppers for the tomato sauce, _Stiles’ recipe,_ and blinks at Isaac. He doesn’t say anything, so Isaac keeps talking. “I miss him every day but I call him and he tells me what he’s doing, where he’s going. How much freer he is. He’s not coming back, Derek,” Isaac says, and something in his tone has hardened. “You chained him down.” And he disappears from the room, stomping up the steps like a petulant teenager. 

Derek keeps dicing. 

==

This is not the first time Stiles has left for a long period of time. 

The first time was after a long battle that Derek instigated, over something as silly as Stiles _talking too much,_ Derek thinks. They fight and fight and fight, and in the end, Derek has called him childish, naïve, and unwilling to learn anything. Stiles has called Derek a martyr, an asshole, and taken absolutely painful digs at Derek and his life choices and his family. They both did. 

Stiles packs a duffle and screams out the door that he’ll be lucky if Derek ever sees him again, he has better things to do with his life than fight with some stupid emotionally stunted werewolf. 

They don’t talk for a week. Stiles stays at his Dad’s for a month. The bed is empty and Derek stays awake most nights, inhaling the fading scent on Stiles’ pillow and thinking about reaching out for his phone and calling him, texting him, anything, saying, _I miss you, I’m sorry._ But he doesn’t, because that’s not who Derek is. He doesn’t apologize and he doesn’t give in. He just can’t. Every time his brain tells him to _call, text, visit,_ his body won’t follow the orders. Every time he opens his mouth during a fight to say, _stop, alright, stop, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any of it,_ his throat swells shut and his jaw locks tight, unwilling to let the words slip free. 

So Derek just waits. 

A month and a week later, Stiles appears on the porch, duffel bag at his feet, and a tentative smile on his face. They don’t say anything. There’s no resolution to their fight. There’s Stiles, wrapped around Derek’s legs, as Derek carries him upstairs. There’s Derek, tossing him down against the cream colored sheets, Stiles’ cheeks a rosy red, flushed from the thrill. There’s Stiles, gripping his shoulders, _more, more, more_ , and Derek, biting at his throat, little love bites that leave a ring around his collarbone, a necklace that screams _mine, mine, mine._

They fall asleep and something inside Derek curls up and settles down with Stiles in his arms. 

==

Jackson is second. “You truly believe he’s going to come back,” he taunts. Because that’s how Jackson always talks, like he’s taunting the person he’s conversing with. Derek snaps his teeth and growls. 

“Get back to work,” he snarls. “We’re training, not discussing our lives.”

Because Jackson is good – better than good, he’s smart and quick and fast, all the things to make a deadly werewolf and weapon – he pins Derek down and looks down at him, grinning wickedly, “You believe he’ll come back just like every time, back to your waiting arms and just pretend like nothing ever happened. You don’t even know what you’ve lost,” Jackson says, right before Derek throws him across the yard. 

Lydia shrieks indignantly on the porch. “That was _unnecessary,_ ” she snaps, coming over. “Just because you’ve screwed your own life up doesn’t mean you need to screw everyone else’s up, too.” She glares at Derek so hard Derek thinks he’s withering under her look, and then stomps over to where Jackson is cradling his already-healing broken arm. 

==

It’s been a hundred and ten days, Derek realizes one day, looking at the calendar. Snow flies outside, the driveway is covered in ice, and Stiles has been gone for a hundred and ten days. 

Derek hasn’t heard from him once.

==

Derek finds a postcard addressed to Isaac hanging on the fridge, picture side out. It’s a cheesy picture, of the ocean and the beach, the sun setting behind the waves. Derek slides it out from under the magnet and turns it over. 

_In Florida. In December. It’s still 78 degrees. I got sunburn, but you know how my complexion is. Don’t let the holidays bring you down, buddy. I’ll call you soon. Love you, Stiles._

The burning inside Derek is back. As he replaces the magnet and faces the truth: Stiles knows Isaac better than Derek ever has, and Stiles makes sure he’s still thinking about him, even when he’s not here. 

Stiles has always been the better person. 

==

Scott is next. 

He says, “You know, he’s really happy,” one day, when they’re working in the kitchen together to make Penko breaded garlic chicken and mashed potatoes, _from Stiles’ recipe._ Derek doesn’t pause in his handmade potato-mashing, but it does get a little more violent. “He’s tanned and happy and I – I haven’t heard or seen him like that in a long time.”

The mashing stops. “You saw him?” Derek growls. Scott doesn’t even flinch. He _nods_ like he’s _bragging_ about it. 

“He came to visit for the holidays,” Scott says. Derek feels like he’s been hit by a truck. There’s silence for a moment. Finally Scott says quietly, “You should move on, Derek. He has.”

Derek starts mashing potatoes again. 

==

Derek works at his garage and trains with his wolves and sits in the silence of the newly remodeled house that Stiles helped choose the décor for, the paint colors and the barn wood flooring for, and the television, the mattress, the pictures hanging on the walls, _Stiles chose them all,_ and Derek comes home to them every night, something in his head saying, _Stiles will be there too_. Except he never is, and that’s when the burning ignites, full force again, every single time Derek walks into the house. Sometimes Isaac is there, in the living room, and he catches the look of surprise on Derek’s face when he realizes Stiles isn’t there. 

Isaac always gives him this look like he feels _sorry_ for him, and it makes Derek so angry, so tired, and he feels weak from all the emotions coursing through him. 

Sometimes Isaac has nightmares. The first time he had them, after Stiles left this last time, Derek wasn’t sure what to do. It was always Stiles’ job to soothe him, to make him talk about it, and to comfort him and tell him it will be alright. Derek knows they’re not just nightmares about his father; they’re nightmares about Erica and Boyd being gone, about the battles they’ve won, but at a price. They haven’t had any trouble in a long time, but that doesn’t mean Isaac still doesn’t think about it. 

The first few times, Derek tries to let Isaac be, but he’s always shaken by the sobs coming from Isaac’s room, so he gets up and goes in and holds him. He never says anything, and neither does Isaac, and eventually they fall asleep together, both of them lonely and haunted. 

Derek revels in the comfort of being next to someone, even if it’s not Stiles.

==

It’s been two hundred and forty-five days. The sun shines outside, the leaves are a bright and vivid green, there are flowers blooming all over Derek’s front yard, and most days when the pack is here, they wander around in just a pair of shorts, sweat sheening over their bodies. Lydia is constantly wearing her slinky bikini around the house, waving a handmade paper fan and complaining about no air conditioning. 

It’s been two hundred and forty-five days, and Derek hasn’t seen Stiles once.

==

He starts accepting that Stiles isn’t going to come back. He stops expecting Stiles to be on the other side of the door, all of his things put away, a smile on his face as he runs up to Derek and wraps his legs around Derek’s waist, all tangled up together, so good, _so good,_ and he stops imagining that Stiles misses Derek as much as Derek misses him. 

The drawers on Stiles’ side of the dresser are still empty. The pictures of him and Derek still hang on the wall. 

But Derek moves on anyways. 

He talks to Isaac first. He’s not one for talking but he thinks it might help. He still struggles. “I know that… I’m accepting that… I’m just trying,” he struggles to say, _I know he’s not coming back, and I know I treated him like shit,_ but none of it comes out. 

Isaac offers him a tentative smile. “You’ll get there,” he says, reaching out and hugging Derek tight, “I know you will, Derek. You’ll be just as happy.”

Derek doesn’t see it, but he tries anyways. He puts a pool in his backyard because it’s mid-July and the sun is blazing and Lydia never stops complaining. He stops taking all the overtime at the garage to avoid coming home, and instead, he puts his own little touches to the house. He adds a picture of Laura and him, because after so many years, it no longer hurts. He drapes an afghan that Laura made across the back of the couch. It’s not much, but it’s the little things, he thinks, that make it so it’s not _Stiles, Stiles, Stiles,_ all the time. 

He doesn’t pick fights with _anyone_ anymore. He’s no longer tense, awaiting a battle constantly; instead he’s more relaxed. He sits on the porch in the evening with Scott and Jackson and Lydia, drinking beers, watching Isaac chase rabbits around in his wolf form, until he tires himself out and comes up onto the porch and drinks his own beer. They stop having such brutal training exercises, and instead of beating on one another, they chase each other through the woods and demand that Lydia runs so they can chase her. 

He doesn’t know when it stops, but one day, as the leaves are turning crisp again, Derek realizes the burning has stopped. 

==

Lydia and Jackson have been married for a while, but it’s still surprising when Lydia announces her pregnancy. Something happy and proud shines in Derek’s heart, and he hugs them both tightly, laughing when Jackson punches him in the shoulder and tells him not to get too mushy. “You’re having a _baby,_ ” Scott says in awe, suddenly looking like Jackson and Lydia have a really shiny toy that he wants, but they won’t share. 

“That’s generally what happens when a young couple wants to start a family,” Lydia says, rolling her eyes. 

“But – but –” Scott can’t seem to find the right words, so he just snaps his mouth shut and flings himself at both of them, hugging them just as tightly as Derek did. Across from Derek, Isaac sniffles. 

“It’s just so beautiful,” Isaac says. “They’ll be really great parents, is all.” 

Derek tugs his arm until Isaac stumbles the three feet closer, and they all get together in one huge group hug, _“Puppy pile,” says Stiles,_ and Derek’s smile can’t be wiped off his face. 

Stiles’ voice never leaves his head, but it’s gotten less bitter, and a whole lot nicer, Derek thinks. 

==

Derek buys things. Lots of things. Things for the nursery they’re decorating in Derek’s house, things for Lydia and Jackson’s apartment, clothes for the baby, toys for the baby. He builds the crib himself, going out and buying all the necessary items to make it strong and steady. He spends long winter nights in the garage, the electric heater humming steadily behind him as he sands and saws and stains different pieces of wood, before putting them all together. In the end, a cherry stained wooden crib, artful and almost delicate looking, sits in the middle of the garage.

Lydia cries when she first sees it. “It’s just so beautiful,” she says, and Derek thinks back to Isaac saying that when they first announced their pregnancy. 

“You’ll be great parents,” Derek tells her, and she throws her arms around him. 

Derek tries to ignore something in his mind, something suspiciously like Stiles’ voice that says, _kids would be nice,_ and hugs her back tightly, placing a hand on the bump where the newest member of their pack sits. 

==

Lydia convinces Derek to put the handmade crib in their house, because it matches their furniture so well. So Derek and Jackson haul it into the apartment, and they set it gently down in the baby’s room. 

“What’s that?” Derek asks Jackson, pointing at the antique looking rocking chair already sitting in the corner of the room. Jackson looks over at it and then snaps his gaze back over to Derek. 

“That’s – Stiles sent it,” he says quietly. Derek’s heart leaps a little, but he controls it quickly. He studies the chair for a moment. 

They’ve always had such similar taste, Derek thinks. The rocking chair is the identical stain to the crib. They both have an antique air about them – the chair probably is antique, Derek realizes, and they both have a delicate look about them, like they can’t withstand much, but Derek knows the truth. Both these pieces of furniture could probably survive almost anything. 

“It’s nice,” he says when he’s finished looking at it, and tries to ignore the way that Jackson looks pleasantly surprised that there were no outbursts at mentioning Stiles’ name outright. 

“It is,” Jackson says, and they go back out to help haul in all of Lydia’s treasures she found while out shopping. 

==

It’s been a year. Spring is there, and Lydia having her baby is there, and Derek smiling easier, laughing easier is right there, too. Thinking about Stiles less and less happens eventually, though Derek’s heart will always flutter when he hears Stiles’ name. Holidays come and go and Derek spends them with Isaac and Lydia and Jackson and Scott, and they laugh and make silly handmade cards. 

Lydia gives birth on a sunny Saturday morning. Lydia cries when they put her in Lydia’s arms, and beside her, Jackson sniffles. “We’re naming her Laura,” Lydia announces, and Derek maybe wants to cry a little, too. “After the bravest girl we never knew,” she continues, and Derek reaches out and runs his finger along baby Laura’s soft, pink cheek. Laura snuffles in her sleep a little, before reaching a hand out and wrapping it around Derek’s finger. 

She’s tiny and important. She’s new life, and with her, comes good fortune. 

It’s been a year, and Derek almost forgets the look on Stiles’ face when he left. 

==

Derek never wanted kids, never thought he was good enough to be a parent, but if there’s anyone in the world, _besides Stiles,_ who makes him want to be a better person, it’s Laura Whittemore, who at all of four months old, has him wrapped around her tiny finger. He learns new things every day. There’s diaper changing, feeding, burping, and rocking her when nothing else works to calm her down. There’s the first time baby powder explodes in his face and Lydia is laughing hysterically, too hysterically to help him, and Jackson is too busy snapping picture after picture. There’s Isaac, teaching him what to do, helping him clean it up, and then playing endlessly with Laura. 

Laura grows and grows more and more, until she’s eight months old and crawling. Derek can’t even believe how fast the time went. 

Postcards come all the time for Isaac, pictures of different oceans and state lines and even a few times – countries. Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and then over to England and back. Hawaii, Florida, South Carolina, New York. Derek has all the pictures from the postcards memorized, because they’re little details of where Stiles has been and where he might _stay._

He comes in to visit and see Laura twice, but no one ever tells Derek until he’s already gone, and Derek never asks. 

He’s not ready yet. 

==

Sometimes Derek wonders why he ever stayed angry as long as he did. He wonders why he couldn’t have this happiness with Stiles, with his whole entire pack from the beginning. He realizes, though, that in the beginning, he was just so cautious. He fell hard for Stiles, but he was also nervous, distrustful, and waiting for the other shoe to drop from the beginning. Stiles only ever wanted Derek to trust him, to treat him as an equal, and Derek always held himself so far above everyone else, away from the danger of being hurt and betrayed yet again. 

Every time, Derek regrets it. He regrets flinging words about Stiles and his emotions and his life in general back in Stiles’ face every time they fought. He regrets never telling Stiles the truth, _I love you, I love you, I love you,_ and he regrets never, not once, chasing after Stiles. To tell him he’s sorry and please come back and he’ll work on it, he promises. 

He never did that, and that’s what he regrets most. 

==

When summer burns bright and hot again, when Laura utters her first words, “Derek, momma, dada,” that’s when Derek wants to leave.

There’s an itching underneath his skin and the need to _go_ and find Stiles. The latest postcard reads, _in Birmingham for the summer, found a job, the southern accents are so fun to listen to and repeat._ with a heart and Stiles’ name signed at the bottom. The postcard is a picture of the redneck flag, which had made Isaac laugh delightedly. 

“He’d never,” Isaac had said, “he doesn’t fit in there,” and he’d shaken his head and stuck it on one of the only remaining spots on the fridge. 

Derek packs his things and books a plane ticket. 

It’s been four hundred and eighty-eight days, and Derek wants to tell Stiles all the things he’s learned. 

==

Birmingham is hotter than Beacon Hills. It’s busier, but slower, and Derek studies a map of the city trying to figure out where to start looking. Before he does anything, he checks into a hotel. He grabs another map and a bottle of water, and starts wandering around the city. 

He finds him by accident. 

It’s a bar on practically the other side of the city, and Derek is tired and hungry, so he walks in and sits down at the counter. He sees Stiles before Stiles sees him. He’s working behind the counter, pouring drinks and laughing delightedly with a customer. “Roll Tide, really?” Stiles is saying, “I’m more of a Penn State fan myself,” and the customer is arguing half-heartedly, shooting off statistics about all the Big Ten schools. 

When Stiles turns his head, he stops. Derek stops breathing and stares back at him. _Four hundred ninety days,_ his brain supplies for him, and he’s seeing Stiles’ face. He looks a little older, but there are less worry lines around his eyes than there had been when he was with Derek all the time. His hair is grown longer, done in a messy, halfhearted attempt at spiking the front upwards, and his eyes are still the same - bright and golden amber, reading all his emotions out for him. 

Stiles steps forward. Derek fights the urge to flee, and tells his mouth determinedly, _you will speak,_ as he keeps his eyes on Stiles. 

“Hey,” Derek says hoarsely, mouth dry. Stiles says nothing, but the incline of his head says he hears Derek. “I – Isaac gets these postcards,” he says, “They – they say where you are, where you’ve been. And I know they were addressed to Isaac.” Derek looks down, running his fingers in odd shapes over the bar counter, “But I can’t help but think they were for me, telling me if I ever wanted to come for you, this is where you’d be.” 

Stiles doesn’t say anything. 

“I just wanted to – I wanted to say,” Derek takes a deep breath, and then starts all over again because it’s not coming out right. “No, that’s not right. Here’s what I’m saying. All these things have happened, and while I’m happier and brighter and even probably nicer, every time something significant happens in my life, I can’t help but think, _what would Stiles think about this?_ Your voice never leaves my head. You – your thoughts are always echoing in my brain when I’m about to make a decision.”

Stiles looks at him, and then he clears his throat, “So you came all this way to tell me that?” he asks. 

“No,” Derek says slowly, “I came all this way to tell you that I’m fighting for you. I’m – I’m changing for you, I’m trying for you. Because I want you, Stiles, and I love you. I _do,_ ” Derek says adamantly when Stiles opens his mouth to say something. “But I want to start over. I don’t want to go right back to where we were. I want dinners and movies and wine and chocolate and all the stupid cheesy stuff. I want a buildup to sex because the payoff will be greater in the end. I want us spending nights at each other’s places because we want to be together but we’re not ready to take that step yet, not again.” 

Stiles’ eyes shine with tears and something Derek can’t quite read. 

“I want four hundred and ninety days of that because that’s how long it took me to get smart and realize _you’re_ what I want,” Derek finishes. 

Stiles says, “You really did learn how to talk,” and laughs. 

Derek doesn’t say anything. Stiles wipes at his nose with his sleeve and says, “I get off at ten. There’s this really nice diner around the corner. And Beacon Hills was my next stop anyways.”

Derek breathes out. 

==

It’s been four hundred and ninety days, and it took Derek forever but they’re at day one again.


End file.
